(Editor's note: This column was originally published in The Free Press on Oct. 29, 2012)
For roughly five years during my high school/college career, I was a table maintenance specialist at The Barn Steakhouse in Kinston.
Of course, when I say “table maintenance specialist,” I mean busboy.
I was also schooled in food prep, which means everything on the salad bar was either sliced, ripped, smashed or poured by moi. Napkin folding was also under my purview, and not that lame old square to rectangle jive. We were taught to fold a napkin in a way that was a cross between a pirate hat and one of those paper pop guns that were popular in middle school. At Thanksgiving, we’d fold the napkins into the shape of turkey; at Christmas, we’d fold them to resemble Santa; on Election Day, they were folded to look like empty shirts.
In those days it was known as The Beef Barn, which gave my friends/acquaintances plenty of ammunition. To each his own, but after a while it got old having to explain to people that I did not work at a gay bar. If it had been a gay bar, I’d probably have a better sense of style than I ended up with. How anyone could think a gay establishment would have allowed me to wear $5 black pants, black shoes purchased from a hardware store and a white shirt that came free in a box of corn flakes is beyond me. It wasn’t a revolt against being fabulous, but an adherence to practicality.
In all honesty, it made no sense to get my GQ on for a job that involved cleaning up the food remnants that escaped the mouths of total strangers. Sometimes a table could be cleaned and set back up in under a minute, while other times it took several minutes and some assistance from FEMA. Ironically, the people who came in dressed as if they’d just come from a taping of Jerry Springer’s show were the best customers and the easiest to clean up after. The absolute worst customers were always dressed to the nines.
This customer was reportedly a man of the cloth, but to be honest he was probably a pretender who had a show on local TV for a while and ended up selling refrigerators to Eskimos. He’d usually come in with his two sons who were probably teenagers but not driving yet. As a little literary appetizer to illustrate how this guy operated, he routinely asked to be seated at the one table in the entire restaurant that wasn’t ready. We could have five tables and two booths ready to go, but he’d always want the only one that hadn’t been cleaned yet.
“Are y’all gonna clean that table tonight?” he’d ask as if I owed him a share of my check.
“No, sir, that is a living monument to President George Washington, who ate here just after crossing the Delaware,” I told him one night. “One of his wooden teeth fell out and we still have part of the toothpick he used to fashion a temporary tooth so as to finish his steak.”
His insistence on having to have the one table that hadn’t been cleaned was nothing compared to what this man did to our salad bar.
Usually, a fully stocked salad bar would have been enough to sustain 10-12 customers, but when this guy went through it made what Sherman did to Atlanta look like a pillow fight. If a rabid, vegetarian grizzly bear had busted through the front door and commandeered the salad bar, he would have made less mess and left more food behind than this gluttonous twit. This culinary commando would plop at least a pound of oysters onto his salad plate, which by the way was the first time I’d ever seen a ceramic plate buckle.
My other favorite was the guy who always demanded fresh lettuce.
“Excuse me, but could you put out some fresh lettuce please?” he’d say.
“Sir, this was put out just a few minutes ago. I believe the tray of ice it’s sitting on has managed to keep it from wilting in a mere three minutes,” is what I wanted to tell the guy, but my boss — Charles Andersen — adhered to the old “customer is always right” policy, so I did my best to make Tim Zagat Jr. happy.
At first this meant going into the back and adding more lettuce to the perfectly fine lettuce that was already in the pan. With time I learned that all I had to do was walk around the corner with the pan and stand in the kitchen for 30 seconds. I’d then walk back out with the same pan of lettuce and the little moron that probably couldn’t never knew the difference.
I mentioned Charles Andersen earlier, and I have to say that he’s earned his spot in the Hall of Great Bosses. Upon his arrival at the helm, he noticed my rate of pay was out of phase with my level of work, and without prodding gave me a raise. With time we became friends; and, no, it wasn’t because of the raise. We shared/share a mutual love for the band Rush and even saw them in concert together on the “Counterparts” tour. If a waitress had a sick child or someone had a family emergency, Charles was understanding and never cross. Everybody — following Charles’ example — just cranked it up a little more to make it through.
My favorite part of our routine was the weekly Saturday night trip to Greenville. For his first few years at the restaurant, Charles was still working for the original owner. At the end of each week (Saturday night) we’d jump in his car and motor the receipts/paperwork over to the owner in Greenville. It probably doesn’t seem like much to you, but it was (and is) incredibly cool to shoot down N.C. 11 in the dark of night with the windows down while listening to a Neal Pear drum solo.
As luck would have it, Charles was finally able to take over The Barn the very week two national chain restaurants opened within spit-ball distance of his parking lot. For many years Charles’ work ethic, business acumen and dedication to putting out a high-quality product kept The Barn in the game. It wasn't uncommon for Charles to do his managerial gig, prep all the food and be the chef all in the same day. With all this in mind it was tough to hear The Barn was shutting down at the end of this month. I was glad to see Charles has landed on his feet with a new endeavor, and it won’t take long for his new associates to pat themselves on the back for bringing him on board.
Along with Charles there was Lois — who to my knowledge was the longest-tenured Barn employee in its history. Becky and Donna, you guys were always fun to work with, as was Ray and his sweet sister who passed away about a year after I left. Thanks to all of y’all for sharing your Saturday nights and tips with me for all those years. As soon as Charles gets established at his new job, we should hit him up to spring for a reunion dinner.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon’s book ‘Making Gravy in Public’ at the Free Press office and at jondawson.com.